Gwen MacKenzie, market president of Ascension Health Michigan, has announced she will resign effective April 30, a month after publicly announced layoffs of 500 employees.

MacKenzie, who has headed up the 15-hospital regional system since 2014, was unavailable for an interview, according to a press release from Ascension.

Ascension Health Michigan

Joseph Cacchione, M.D.

Joseph Cacchione, M.D., has been appointed interim ministry market executive for Ascension Michigan. He also is president of Ascension Medical Group.

"I recruited Gwen to lead a complex market undergoing transformation to population health faster than many of our markets in Ascension," Patricia Maryland, executive vice president of Ascension and CEO of Ascension Healthcare in St. Louis, said in a statement. Maryland previously was market president of Ascension Michigan and St. John Providence Health System, an Ascension regional system based in Warren.

"She has advanced the clinically integrated network for both Ascension Michigan and Together Health Network, our statewide, physician-led clinically integrated network with Trinity Health and Michigan Medicine, and leaves us poised to grow. I am grateful for the time she committed."

In a statement, MacKenzie said: "When I returned to Michigan from Florida having been recruited by Pat Maryland to support her in a market I was very familiar with and fond of, I gave Pat my commitment of three to four years.

"Having fulfilled that commitment to Pat, I have been privileged to be part of Ascension and leave with best wishes for success.

"With the rapid cycle transformation we are experiencing in health care, the skill sets of future top leaders will likely be different as we innovate around population health and consumer expectations. I believe Ascension will continue to be a leader in this space while sustaining the Mission of our historic sponsors."

Earlier this year, Crain's reported layoffs at Ascension hospitals in Michigan. The layoffs ranged from nurses to managers. MacKenzie acknowledged in an interview in March that the goal was for the health system to reduce costs by $60 million this year, improve efficiencies and worker productivity.

MacKenzie confirmed the layoffs covered a wide range of job categories: nurses, medical therapists, technicians, unit clerks and other support service employees. Other layoffs of union workers were expected to be announced in the coming weeks.

"We have transitioned close to 500 associates. Every one of those has been painful and hurtful," said MacKenzie in a previous interview. "You probably wonder why we were not talking more openly about it. It is very private and sensitive matter that we take very seriously on behalf of our associates."

Ascension Michigan employs about 26,000 people, and the layoffs are a little more than 2 percent of the workforce.

Maryland credited MacKenzie for advancing a number of cutting-edge Ascension programs and strategies. For example, MacKenzie last year helped recruit 136 new providers, including 100 physicians; opened a 60,000-square-foot, $17.5 million health center campus in Livingston; and exceeded its target for new primary-care patients.

MacKenzie was recognized by Crain's as among the Most Influential Women in Michigan 2016. She also spent 27 years at the Detroit Medical Center before leaving to become CEO of Sarasota (Fla). Memorial Health Care System from 2005 to 2014. She also was vice chair of the Florida Hospital Association from 2013-2014.

She began her career as an oncology nurse practitioner at the University of Michigan, UCLA and DMC. She is a University of Michigan graduate and received a master's degree in nursing from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Cacchione, who will assume the Ascension Michigan helm on April 30, previously served in leadership positions at the Cleveland Clinic, including chair of operations and strategy for the clinic's heart and vascular institute. An internist, Cacchione also has worked in the St. Vincent Health System in Erie, Pa.